The God of Love

Eros (or Cupid)

Go to Cupid and Psyche: an illustrated
version of the great love story. On one level
it is the definitive telling of a story by a master (that's Apuleius,
not me!) - but it can also be interpreted as the quest of the soul (Greek psyche) for immortality.

Stay here for Aspects of Love: confused about
the differences between Eros and Cupid? Seek no further!

ros only gradually becomes a separate god: in Homer
he's just the lust which drives men and gods to sex (eg Paris and Helen
in Iliad 3, or Zeus and Hera in Iliad 14). Hesiod promotes him to one
of the oldest of the gods - responsible for the "coming-together" of everything:
he is almost a First Principle of the Universe, as old as Earth and Tartarus
- with total power over gods and men. Obviously nothing could have been
born without him! Nor could he have had parents. (I like this idea of
Sex as the ruling force). Far from being the son of the goddess of Love
(as Cupid became) - there's a relief which shows Eros assisting at the
birth of Aphrodite.

ater writers, in the Roman era, make him son of Aphrodite/Venus - with varied parentage (Hermes,
Ares, her own father, Zeus). So the "evidence" depends on whom you want
to follow. I think Virgil was the first to give Ares/Mars as a parent:
the symbolism of Love and War being most attractive: both Venus and Mars
had a role, of course in the origin of Rome (Venus as mother of Aeneas,
who was Cupid's half-brother; Mars as father of Romulus.) But Eros/Cupid
is much more linked with his mother, than with any father.

e is thought of as cruel, cunning and unmanageable, and is often armed
with a whip. He comes suddenly like the wind. But he can also be playful.
He is attractive, young. He is a companion of Aphrodite, along with Pothos
("Longing") and Himeros ("Desire"). Plato's Symposium is a wonderful discussion
of the various ways in which Eros can be interpreted (it includes the
famous one where we're all the halves of beings separated from our other
self, and eros drives us to spend our lives trying to locate him/her:
the original beings were male, female or hermaphrodite - if we are looking
for another male we're homosexual, another female we're lesbian - only
the original hermaphrodites look for lovers of a different sex!

he bow and arrows don't come until Euripides (Iphigeneia in Aulis 548)
- and in Greek myth he was never the son of Aphrodite - that was his Roman counterpart
Cupid, who was Venus' son. Cupid was the Roman "translation" of the Greek
God Eros (the Greek name came to mean love of all kinds, but Cupido is
strictly Sexual Lust). In art he is usually winged, and often appears
in scenes of womens' life, especially marriage.

he Cupid and Psyche tale as we know it is not myth - it's actually one
of the earliest examples of fiction - it comes from part of a novel by
Apuleius called Metamorphoses, about a guy who's changed into an ass ("not
as you think, small round and pink, but grey with long ears and eats grass")
and has a number of amazing adventures. In the novel it's told by an old
drunken woman to cheer up a young girl who was raped on her wedding night.
If you want to read the full version, the translation by Robert Graves
is the best.